Sometimes it is nice to follow one’s own decline – after all, it can be a fun trip! It’s a relief to know that the simpler things in life really are quite fulfilling, and as the years go by I find that this is increasingly true.
With regard to chocolate, I am blessed in many ways. Not only can I afford to buy all I want, that amount is not enough to do me any serious harm. It happens that I am particularly fond of the smallest snack sizes available. Now I am able to bring you yet another public service on these pages – a review of specialty items from Nestle Crunch.
In the above picture you can have a nice look at examples of Nestle Crunch Jingles, Eggs and Hearts. These are seasonal items, only available a few weeks out of the year. Now you might assume that these treats aren’t any good because they haven’t already been eaten. It’s also not entirely unreasonable to suspect that, seeing as how these are not exactly “high end” candies in the first place, it might make more sense to just eat them right away and try not to draw much attention to the whole deal.
Over the years I have come to associate Easter with the best holiday candy. Are the Nestle Crunch Eggs the best of these novelty seasonal items? I’ve always thought so, but this opinion never was put to the test – until now. It required both discipline and a bit of absent-mindedness to keep a few of the bell shaped Jingles on hand and to add a stash of Hearts to the pile that might last until the candy buildup towards Easter.
I can’t avoid making one religious point here, one aimed at any ordained clerics or laypeople on the boards of directors of houses of worship who may stumble onto these few paragraphs. Are you ready? Here goes: Chocolate makes everything better. Last fall I found myself at a Jewish High Holy Days break-the-fast service. They had a big chocolate fountain and a gigantic pile of fresh strawberries waiting to be dipped. Properly marketed, this practice can’t help but be good for membership, no matter which of God’s various franchises is serving up the fresh-dipped chocolate strawberries!
Right. Where was I? Oh yes, the Nestle Crunch novelty chocolate question. Well, I’ve had a chance to engage in some thoughtful empirical tests in addition to visually inspecting these items at close quarters. It turns out that the Jingles and the Eggs are made with the same basic technology. Two halves are fused together to make the whole product, which is then wrapped in foil as illustrated above. The Hearts, on the other hand, are only one piece thick. That leads to a certain physical integrity when the item is bitten. The Jingles and Eggs are likely to split along the seam when bitten, whereas the Hearts will break where bitten.
For what it’s worth, I guess I still think the Eggs are the most pleasing of the lot, all things being equal. I like carrying one or two around in my pocket long enough for them to become soft enough to chew without a lot of give but not so soft as to lose their physical integrity entirely.
There is a way to make the most of the Hearts, however, one that might make that item the best of these three treats. It takes a little work. Get a Heart. Unwrap it. Put the foil on top of a coffeemaker and put the heart on top of the foil. Make the coffee. By the time it’s brewed, the heat will melt the Heart without causing it to run. Lick the heart off the foil and get a delightful massive hit of Nestle Crunch goodness.
Agree or disagree? How do you know if you haven’t compared them yourself? Face it, you’ve got a lot of work to do. Maybe it’s time to get busy.
Incidentally, am I the only one old enough to remember the old jingle they used to use on TV a long time ago? Didn’t it go something like this? “N-e-s-t-l-e-s, Nestles makes the very best chocolate.” Isn’t that right? Sure it is. OK, somebody explain to me what happened to the “s.” Did they take it away at some point, or did the TV jingle contain a misspelling of the product’s name?
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